communications

Mastering Tough Conversations with your Boss – Engineering Career TV Ep. 11

May 22, 2017 By EMI

Q: How do I have tough conversations with my boss about over commitment?

Welcome to Episode #10 of Engineering Career TV. The topic for this episode is Mastering Tough Conversations with your Boss.

I will spend most of the Engineering Career TV episodes answering questions that have been submitted from engineers around the world on how to rapidly advance their careers and live the lives they want to live.

You can submit questions for the show by clicking here.

Let’s jump into today’s topic, Mastering Tough Conversations with your Boss, which is based on a question from Stan, who asks the following: [Read more…] about Mastering Tough Conversations with your Boss – Engineering Career TV Ep. 11

TCEP 033: Civil Engineering Interviews from the Society of American Military Engineers 2016 JETC

June 8, 2016 By EMI

The Civil Engineering Podcast visits Arizona for the SAME JETC conference…..

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SAME JETC

Episode 33 of The Civil Engineering Podcast was recorded in Phoenix, Arizona, where I interviewed successful individuals at the Society of American Military Engineers (aka SAME) Joint Engineer Training Conference & Expo (JETC).

Here are some of the key points I discussed with ask Adam Hughes during JETC:

Adam is a Civil Engineer in the United States Public Health Service that focuses on ensuring that Indian reservations/communities have clean water. He has been practicing in this industry for 12 years now.
His team consist out of 14 engineers, drafters, construction inspectors and civil engineering technicians. At the moment they are working with two tribes in southern Arizona.
For someone that is interested in management, he recommends to first develop your technical capability and to then develop your verbal and written communication skills. It is also important to find your own management style and gain awareness of your own limitations and preconceptions.
We don’t all see a problem the same way and it is not that one way is right and the other way wrong, it is more of trying to understand each other so that we can effectively communicate and work with people.
It’s not just about being able to crunch the numbers, you’ve got the take the next step if you want to make change as a civil engineer.

Here are some of the key points I discussed with Kris Prasad at JETC:

The 7 Key Result Areas for Engineering Career Success

November 30, 2015 By Christian Knutson, PE, PgMP, PMP

Engineering Career

You have the skills and ability right now to be ten times more successful in your engineering career. To make this change requires a strategy to focus your efforts and a commitment to incremental improvement. The strategy will be built on seven domains that you have complete control over.

Complete control to either improve or do nothing.

All you have to do is apply the right attitude, employ the right mindset, then get to work.

Leadership 101- A New Paradigm?

September 21, 2015 By EMI

This is a guest blog post by Croft Edwards

Congratulations, you have been such a great engineer that management has decided to make you a leader and give you a team of engineers to lead. Shouldn’t be too difficult to do, after all people are just like engineering problems and in your 4 plus years of engineering school you had many leadership classes. Right! Oh, that’s not the case. You have not had many leadership classes; in fact, in your entire college career of engineering you did not have a single leadership class. What do you do? A great place to start is with a little clarity over what exactly is this thing called leadership and how is it different from management.

We define management as the authority granted to an individual by an organization. The organization you work for gives you authority to do things like hire/fire, manage people and budgets and make decisions in your role as a manager. [Read more…] about Leadership 101- A New Paradigm?

What’s An Ambivert? It’s How To Move Others Throughout Your Engineering Career

September 7, 2015 By Christian Knutson, PE, PgMP, PMP

For the longest time through my engineering career I labeled myself an ‘introvert’. You know, the typical engineer stereotype: reserved, shy, maybe a bit nerdy. OK, maybe seriously nerdy. In any case, I just considered myself the stereotypical engineer introvert.

This was despite the fact that I was leading people, talking in front of groups of peers, and working in project teams. In each of these situations, I was actively communicating with other people and doing so with a specific intent: to move them. Move them to do something. Change a behavior, react to tasks they were assigned, maybe help me accomplish a co-goal.

In reality, I wasn’t just an introvert. I was bit more than that. But I wasn’t an extrovert either. So what was going on? [Read more…] about What’s An Ambivert? It’s How To Move Others Throughout Your Engineering Career

The Power Poses: Blowing Through Anxiety in Your Next Stressful Engagement

March 5, 2015 By Christian Knutson, PE, PgMP, PMP

Researchers in psychology are uncovering amazing facts about how our brains are wired. The results benefit more than just the research scientists and psychologists. Even us engineers can benefit from this information and put it to good use in our daily lives.

Have you ever felt anxiety before a presentation you were to deliver? How about before a job interview? If you’re like most people, me included, you have. The mind sends threat signals to the brain resulting in the body creating hormones to help us deal with the situation. The two primary hormones involved cortisol (the stress hormone) and testosterone (the dominance hormone).

The event our mind perceives as a threat increases cortisol levels and lowers testosterone levels. This leaves us with an elevated heart rate, cold palms, sweaty armpits and a feeling of vulnerability and powerlessness. Definitely not what we need heading into a presentation, job interview, or any high-stress social situation. [Read more…] about The Power Poses: Blowing Through Anxiety in Your Next Stressful Engagement